Thursday, 19 December 2013

I should first sincerely apologise for the time between blog entries - October - wow, I had no idea how quickly the time has passed since then.

I have been very busy at work, working nights and weekends too, and had little time to spend on firing up the X1000. But, enough of that!

The games front this year has been quiet, but there have been a number of interesting games released on AmigaOS4, which all run well on the X1000.

Huenison (Retream)

The Legend of Edgar (Parallel Realities)

Frogatto (HunoPPC)

GigaloMania (Mark Harman - ported by kas1e)

M.A.C.E (AmiBoing)

A remake of the Innerprise Amiga classic Battle Squadron by Cope-Com was also released this year for AmigaOS4, which means we no longer require Classic Amiga emulation to run it! (no picture sorry)

An AmigaOS4 game released in 2013 that I haven't tried yet is Age of Thieves (Mrdarek) available on os4depot.net.

Some ports of QT framework games were also released in 2013, following the release of the QT framework on AmigaOS4 in 2013. Tanglet is one example, with plenty more available on os4depot.net to try out!

Tanglet (QT):

On the application front in 2013 we saw a number of updates and some new software as well.

A-FTP Server

AmiVNC4

Directory Opus Magellan II Beta

QT4.7 Framework

qMetro (QT):

MihPhoto (QT):

A music player front end called aTunes (Guillaume Boesel) was also released this year, providing a convenient way to collect all music files in a database, and then organise playlists and play music on AmigaOS4 using TuneNet or AmigaAmp as the player.

There were also plenty of updates released this year for existing applications!

On the hardware front 2013 saw the release of Catweasel Mk2 X1000 modification (and updated driver software) from AmigaKit to enable Amiga floppy disk support on the X1000.

In 2013 A-Eon has built a number of AmigaOne X1000 systems, and the X1000 is available now and in stock to purchase from AmigaKit, either as a complete system or just the X1000 motherboard. they even reduced the costs for Xmas! It is good to see that people who want one can more easily buy X1000 systems in 2013.

A-Eon also announced new AmigaOne systems to replace the X1000 at AmiWest 2013. These systems will be a way off yet, but it is good to see a future plan for the AmigaOne hardware platform into the foreseeable future.

A-Eon and ACube Systems (makers of the AmigaOne Sam line of AmigaOS4 compatible systems) announced a future cooperation agreement during 2013. Hopefully this should streamline the hardware used to make driver support easier and quicker to market moving forward.

We also received HD Audio drivers for the onboard X1000 soundcard in 2013, allowing me to finally remove the PCI soundcard, freeing up a slot for other hardware! We are still waiting on the internal network card driver for the X1000 - hopefully we will get this in 2014.

On the Operating System front unfortunately we didn't see the much awaited release of AmigaOS4.2 in 2013, and no idea of when we are likely to see it on the X1000. There is some rumours of AmigaOS4.1 Update 7 being released in 2013 still, but not as I write this.

On a personal level I still think the X1000 is a great AmigaOS4.1 machine, but the lack of visible development progress or updates on the intended AmigaOS4.2 platform on X1000 (which has been already pre-paid for by X1000 owners in 2012) is frustrating for all owners. We are looking forward to having hardware 3d graphics card support and multi-cpu support in AmigaOS4 so we can get the most out of our X1000 and the considerable financial investment made.

This frustration may not be confined to just myself, as it seems apparent by the amount of multiple linux distribution development work happening on the X1000 in 2013 in lieu of visible AmigaOS4.2 development progress being seen.

I admit I have no interest in running Linux on the X1000 and will not do so. I bought the X1000 to use AmigaOS4. I bought it to continue to enjoy using an AmigaOS under active development, and with the X1000 I finally transitioned from regularly using Classic Amigas. To be honest, I would prefer that future X1000 development efforts was focused on AmigaOS4, AROS or MorphOS Amiga like operating systems rather than Linux.

To that end, it would be good if the MorphOS development team could port MorphOS to the X1000. I heard they are already doing some work on the Sam AmigaOne systems so it would be a logical extension. I would be interested in seeing how the two operating systems compare on the same hardware. The latest MorphOS 3.4 was also very recently released, with MorphOS 3.5 expected in 2014. I run MorphOS on a Mac Powerbook and it is nice (although having to use an old Mac and purchase a separate PC-Card wifi card for internet is frustrating)

Please note that I will be on holiday in Japan from Christmas until late January 2014, without access to my X1000. So unfortunately you will have to be patient again for the next X1000 blog update from me.

In the meantime, I wish you and your family a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year, and I am looking forward to an interesting 2014 for the AmigaOne X1000.